Archive for January 2003

The US is set to increase the number of its troops in the Middle East to 150,000, stepping up preparations for a war against Iraq while, as yet, the UN inspectors have uncovered no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, writes Ken Douglas.

TONY BLAIR'S gloomy New Year forecast of 'war, terrorism and a faltering world economy' is a ringing indictment of the capitalist system he supports. He concedes that resolving this "insecurity" depends on his government's policies.
But as HANNAH SELL, BILL MULLINS, JANE JAMES and DAVE CARR show in the following articles, Blair and the ruling classes of the major powers are instead driving the world to disaster.
Only a socialist alternative can avert Blair's doom laden scenario.

IF TONY Blair has been studying the opinion polls, then he won't be expecting a happy New Year. Whether it's on the state of the economy, public services or war against Iraq - opposition to New Labour's

There are only five weeks to go until the national demonstration on 15 February against war on Iraq, called by Stop the War Coalition, writes Clare James, ISR-Youth Against the War representative on Stop the War Coalition steering committee.

THE GOVERNMENT have announced a 'new campaign' to reduce the number of women and children made homeless through domestic violence, writes Eleanor Donne (national chair Campaign Against Domestic Violence).

BLAIR IS preparing to wage war in Iraq and at home. While resisting the firefighters' wholly justified pay claim he is preparing to spend up to £5 billion on sending troops to invade Iraq, writes Bill Mullins.

AT THE end of last year Hackney council made vicious attacks on union activists. They suspended the two job-share UNISON branch secretaries Brian Debus and Will Leng and the branch equalities officer John

JOHN MCALLION, one of the few outspoken and principled socialist MSPs (members of Scottish Parliament) left in the Labour Party, has voted against the leadership on many issues from war preparations on Iraq to opposition to privatisation

THE WORLD Congress of the Committee for a Workers' International, the socialist international organisation to which the Socialist Party is affiliated, met last November to discuss developments in the capitalist system and how these will impact on working-class struggle

ON 14 January an estimated 70,000 Turkish Cypriots - one-quarter of the northern Cypriot population - marched through divided Nicosia in support of a United Nations (UN) plan to re-unify the divided island, writes Dave Carr.

LAST YEAR saw a tremendous ferment amongst German public sector workers. About 250,000 participated in warning strikes in December in support of their pay claim and 40,000 civil servants demonstrated in

HUNDREDS OF thousands of people around the world took to the streets on Saturday 18 January. From Washington to Tokyo, from Damascus to Bradford, the scale of the protests against Bush and Blair's 'War

"WE HAVE to stick to our guns and stay firm, stay united and stick with the two 48-hour strikes that have been called." BILL HENDY, Avon Fire Brigades Union Secretary, spoke to MARK BAKER just before the current firefighters' strikes.

AS REPRESENTATIVES of global capitalism assembled for their annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, last week an alternative 100,000-strong World Social Forum (WSF) gathered in Porto Alegre, Brazil.